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Monday, December 15, 2008

How do you illegally log a rainforest? With hackers

Brazil has turned to tech as a way to stem rampant logging in its Amazonian rainforests, but instead of logging less wood, "creative" logging companies simply hired hackers to make their permits look legal.

Deforestation isn't usually thought of as a technical issue, but the Brazilian state of Pará has launched an online system for issuing permits to logging companies. The system tracks their total output and simply refuses to issues more permits, which are checked when the wood is hauled out in trucks.

According to Greenpeace, though, corruption was widespread. A Brazilian federal prosecutor is set to announce today that more than 107 companies hired hackers to game the permit site in order to generate more permits for timber removal. The government will seek a US$833 million fine for the behavior.

Image source: Greenpeace

It's not as though these companies were in other way model corporate citizens; the hacker hirings appear to be part and parcel of their approach to business. Prosecutor Daniel Avelino said that "almost half of the companies involved in this scam have other lawsuits pending for environmental crimes or the use of slave labor, among other things."

A Greenpeace worker in Brazil notes that the same computer system is used in other Brazilian states, so more arrests could be coming. "We've pointed out before that this method of controlling the transport of timber was subject to fraud," he said. "And this is only the tip of the iceberg, because the same computer system is also used in two other Brazilian states."

Cracking down on illegal timber operations is a full-time job in Brazil. Two weeks ago, Reuters carried a story about how government forces moved into Pará and shut down several sawmills after local residents went on a rampage and ransacked the local environmental office. The mob was upset that 105,900 cubic feet of illegally harvested wood had just been seized, so they stormed the office, stole the trucks containing the wood, and "used a tractor to break down the entrance of the hotel where the government agents stayed."

To address the problem, technology alone won't work. That's why, increasingly, Brazil has also turned to armed patrols. Its "Arc of Fire" program, launched in February and described in the New York Times in April, relies on men with guns to do inspections of logging sites, issue fines, and impound material. It's high tech meets low tech in the battle on illegal logging, but Brazil's numbers this year indicate that it remains an uphill battle.